Forest of the damned.

Damned palm seedlings, that is. Foxtail palm, Wodyetia bifurcata. A lovely, lush thing, but rather too generous with its seeds. Ripening to a rich orange, about golf ball size, they hang on the tree for ages, not unlike a 5kg bag of mandarins and are a good food source for bats, possums and some birds.

Then, the few hundred or so that are left drop to the ground, germinate and away we go again.

That’s not grass! It’s hundreds of foxy seedlings! All this rain we’ve had are having has given everything a boost and I spent some time this morning pulling out handfulls of these. Lovely trees in the right place, but this yard does not have the space for so many. Not so long ago, foxies were at the centre of a scandal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Melville_incident

I also pulled handfulls of Cobblers’ Pegs Bidens pilosa, a nasty thing whose seed awns are not only a fecund nuisance, they can be a menace in animal fur or woolen clothing. The unseen corner over the back fence is choked with them; I’ll have to be extra vigilant when the wind blows from the south.

And then, my back having had enough bending, I straightened up and took a camera for a walk…

The Allamanda can’t seem to stop! Daffodils are out of the question here, but I glory in the matching yellow and similar fragrance. And that’s about the colour of our walls, too!

And the rain has been kind to the Gloriosa, allowing another flush before it goes to sleep…

An un-named bromeliad, bought at a school fair, years ago.

Two of our Anthuriums…I rather like the purple.

I’ll leave you with the Soursop (two that we can see, but possibly another higher up the tree).

Review: The Brisbane Plant Collector’s Fair, 26-27.5.18

I have shamelessly and greedily re-blogged this from Jerry’s place. It makes me want to fire-up a big chain saw and make some room here! 

 

THE ICEMAN COMETH…

Sadly, not Lee Marvin. But I was very,very happy to open the door to the Iceman who did cometh.

Our fridge didn’t seem as cold as it ought to have been.And the freezer was icing-up alarmingly.The biggest concern was that the wine took ages to be drinkably cold!

Having been ,shall we say, a little ticked off with the payment arrangements of the crew who replaced my oven door (basically, they wanted payment to the workman who was sent to do the job.No invoice, no receipt and no facility for card payment.Do I have feckin’ eejit stamped on my forehead?) * I was not about to hire them.

But I still had the number of the chap who replaced the fridge door seals a few years ago and one brief phone call later…he said he’d order new seals, call me when the seals arrived and also check the other workings of the monster then. We had a holiday looming.Still tied to the Palace apron strings, Australia declares a holiday, in June, to celebrate the Sovereign’s birthday.Which is in April, but never mind the logistics…

So the shopping/cooking malarkey was trimmed to daily purchases and rather a lot of stuff was dumped from the freezer. Baked beans on toast, anyone? 🙂

All was well: the seals arrived the day after the holiday and were installed the day after that. Iceman defrosted the iced-up lumps with a dead-handy steamer gizmo.

Much quicker than a hair-dryer! And the thermostat was pronounced “fine” and that was that. Iceman has a hand-held card validating thingy which printed a receipt and I turned my attention to wielding a can opener…**

We’ve been having showery weather on and off for weeks.Gardens, of course, are romping away.As are the rotten weeds. But it’s not all bad news! Cursing a particularly tenacious weed and burning from the sun, I called a halt and came indoors for a cold drink and a little blog-reading.First up, Marie, over in Harlem…BINGO! She’s been foraging and look what’s edible! Yes, I’ve had a little nibble of the raw leaves. A bit too fuzzy for my liking, but I’ll definitely make use of it, lightly steamed. How hairy? About the same as older leaves of the herb borage So, if you have Galinsoga taxing your vocabulary, try sending it to the kitchen, not to the inner circle of Hell.

Trimming the ferns and jasmine back from the edge of path is a constant task.It’s easy enough and sometimes I have help…

Geiger, being “helpful.”  She’d taken a short cut through the ferns and scattered petals all over the path.

 

And the jasmine.  J.officinale, I believe.

It’s Saturday in my world. And that means that in a few hours a happy Band of Brothers    Bloggers will be converging on The Zeddary.  Unable to make the trip this year, I’ll be drinking   thinking of you.Cheers!

* I refused to comply with this idea and drove over to their office the following day and paid.

** Not really. I keep pasta in the pantry and linguini-and-tomatoes with salad saw us well-fed.